Support bodies manufactured in this way and provided, for example, with a semiconductor diode laser are used, for example, as components of a read and/or write head of information-processing equipment such as laser printers, bar code readers, read and/or write devils for optical registration carriers such as CD (Audio) and CDROM (data) discs, and of systems for optical glass fibre communication. The support body then at the same time performs the function of heat sink for the diode laser.
A method of the kind mentioned in the opening paragraph is known from JP(A) 1-14985 published in Patent Abstracts of Japan, vol. 13, no. 195 CE-754) {3543}, 10.sup.th May 1989. It is described therein how a plane heat-conducting silicon plate 1 is subdivided by grooves into blocks which comprise the support bodies to be formed and which remain connected to one another by means of break-off edges. A conductive layer 3 comprising titanium, platinum, and gold, is provided on the plate 1 and the lower side of the plate 1 is also metallized. Layer-shaped regions 5 with a solder comprising gold and tin are provided on the conductive layer on a block. The support bodies are removed from the plate 1 by breaking off.
A disadvantage of the known method is that the support bodies manufactured thereby are unsuitable for use in optoelectronic devices in which, for example, the radiation beam of the semiconductor diode laser mounted on the support body is substantially perpendicular to the carrier plate on which the support body is mounted, as is desirable for a number of applications. In fact, when the diode laser is placed on the upper surface of the support body, the support body must be tilted for this purpose. This involves the problem that the side faces of the support bodies are provided with a break-off edge, so that these side faces are not plane and smooth and accordingly unsuitable for mounting on a plane base surface. Removal of the break-off edges is difficult and in any case requires an additional process step in the known method, which contains comparatively many steps as it is. Fastening of the diode laser on a side surface of the support body is not a solution either because in that case the diode laser cannot be mounted on the support body until after these bodies have been separated from one another. Fastening, burning-in and testing of the diode lasers after mounting on the support bodies as a result becomes very inconvenient.